Esquecer
2024 - 2025 - ongoing
you didn't teach me to forget you (você não me ensinou a te esquecer) is a contemporary dance project in development, in collaboration with visual artist Kiyoshi Yamamoto and dance artist Keira Marie Forde.
In this work we explore the feeling of "foreignness" through an immersive experience where textiles, wind sounds and bodies create a foreign landscape in a black box. Originally conceived for public spaces, we are both working in the context of a blackbox and in different landscapes, transforming the work into both an intimate theatrical experience and an immersive site-specific experience where the audience is invited into a landscape of moving textiles, wind sounds and changing light. The project includes the use of textiles as an active element in the choreography and examines how the body is both integrated into and appears as a "foreign" entity in its surroundings. In the project we plan a video projection and a score with sound and music made from flutes and other wind instruments, as well as a rare mix of beats.
you didn't teach me how to forget you, or Esquecer, is a continuation of a previous work Synthesis, where I explored the body's assimilation of cultural and physical elements. In Esquecer we will expand this exploration by focusing on the body's interaction with light and wind, and how these natural elements shape our movement and self-understanding. A central theme in the project is "impermanence" – that is, our experience of transient states and changes. Moving between embodiment and disembodiment, the work questions how textile materials simultaneously archive and erase bodily memory, creating dialogues between permanent structures and impermanent presence.
During a residency period in Speilet in September 2024 we explored the textiles in a blackbox and created a small score to test in an outdoor setting. In November 2024, we took some concept photos and tested a small score in the landscape of Rogaland.
In May 2025 we had a residency at HAUT in Copenhagen, where we were able to explore the concepts more in depth, and develop some material to test in front of an audience.
We explored:
The role of textiles as both archive and erasing tools of body memory, as protection and barrier, as celebration, and as texture for a colonial past we would like to forget
The body's ability to assimilate and at the same time remain alien in the face of new elements
"Impermanence" - how identity and belonging are in constant flux
In our work-in-progress we presented:
Interactive dance with large, moving textile installations
Live soundscapes created by a mix of sounds and music coming from different personal and cultural references
Video projections that amplify the feeling of alienation
A space where the audience can wander freely and become part of the landscape
An "invasion" of the fabrics un both the building's architecture and outdoors.
Dancers November 2024: Tova Karlsson, Sally Zetterström, Veranica Poniznik, Valentina Martinez Mariscal
Dancers May 2025: Keira Marie Forde, Valentina Martinez Mariscal
Pre-project November 2024 supported by : Kulturdirektoratet - Fri Scenekunst prosjektstøtte
Residency May 2025 supported by : Stavanger kommune, RAS Regional Arena for Samtidsdans, HAUT,
Photos : Maya Økland / Kai Merke/ Valentina Martinez Mariscal
Residency May 2025
Pre-project November 2024
